BTS became the world’s most famous Korean boy band, first becoming popular to America in 2017 as their Wing tour sold out in arenas, their fame would continue to rise as they became the first Korean act to top the billboard 200 with their “Love yourself: Tear” album in 2018. They also became the first Korean group to perform at the Grammys, sell out the Wembley stadium, receive a Gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America, and they spoke at the UN multiple times. The band includes seven members. RM, the group leader, J-hope, and Suga. The vocals of the group are covered by Jin, V, Jimin and Jungkook. BTS debuted on June 13, 2013 with their single “No More Dream” from their “2 Cool 4 School” album. Throughout the years their fame only increased as they topped the charts with one hit after another. While on top of the world, they took a hiatus from the band and completed their Korean Military service.
Once all the members returned from military service March 20, Bighit released a teaser of a world tour and a new album. The excitement of fans could be seen all throughout social media as many took to tiktok, instagram, and twitter to guess what type of music the album would contain. After all the anticipation on Saturday January 24, thousands of fans waited for the countdown to buy their tickets. Within hours, stadiums like Metlife, Wembley and Allegiant were all sold out. Soon their North America tour was sold out.
“Airing” dropped to all streaming platforms on March 20. “Airang” is an album that explores the band’s personnel growth, focusing on the group’s Korean roots using the Korean folk songs as inspiration.
“Airang” opens up with a banger “SWIM.” The song is slow and slowly turns fast as the beat drops quickly. Adding to the vibe of being in the ocean for a survival of life, navigating through the rough seas represent deep emotional challenges, with the lyrics like “ water so deep.”
“Body to Body” is a personal favorite as it gives a nostalgic feeling of the older BTS songs as it includes hip-hop and incorporates a sample of a traditional Korean folk song “Gyeonggi Arirang,” reflecting back to the group’s cultural identity, while it’s also one of the songs that has the most Korean in it. The song’s message is to empty the negatives in your heart and to be born as a better person illustrated by Suga lyrics “Guns, knives, keyboards, put all that away.”
“Into the Sun” by BTS is the song that ends the album, which closes the album in a heartfelt way. This song opens up with V and Jungkook singing in a robotic and autotuned manner, which was a big switch from the rest of the songs and wasn’t my personal favorite. The song then jumps into J-hope’s rap, which is in full Korean and the song continues in Korean until the chorus plays again. The song is really good, but the robotic chorus doesn’t flatter the song. It doesn’t suit the theme, a lovely message of the group’s journey, what’s to come for the future and their endless love for their fan armies. “Ill follow you into the sun” is repeated eight times as the song ends, which symbolize BTS running towards their army even if it’s into the sun, ending the song in a heartfelt love song.
“ Airiang” was such a good album for BTS to end their solo eras and their military hiatus, for giving the fans back the nostalgic feeling of the group reuniting after a few years. However, to better follow the theme of cultural identity they could have sung more lyrics in Korean. Hopefully, the bad continues to explore their culture and include more Korean lyrics in their next album.
